Motion Dynamics Mill Motor Wiring

[motiondynamics]

Hey guys,
I'm sorry this controller failed for you. It's one of the units we hand built, so each one is tested before it leaves the shop. thats why we don't get controller failures. And those that we did, were all running from switchmode power supplies.

That controller you got to replace ours, is not even close in capacity to ours. These models don't come with the hall effect chip, so you have to use the pot input. This is an analog controller, its not digital. And we realise tht giving people so many different jumpers and trimpot options is a bad idea as it just confuses people tht don't fully understand how these controllers work because its funny, people look at the images, but rarely READ whats written there.
But it makes it way more attractive to businesses that can use it in their own products, so you win and you lose at the same time.

The biggest problem we saw is the current of the switchmode power supply available on eBay. Its a 12v motor, but the issue has been for a while now that Chinese sellers are selling smaller and cheaper switchmode power supplies that are fake, especially on eBay and Amazon and Aliexpress, Baidu, facebook marketplace and the rest. They claim 12v and 30A but struggle on anything past 12V 10A and the stupid thing is, is that people don't realise it.

Thats why a lot of controllers fail... its not the voltage, its the current, people go ahead and try and use them and they keep cutting in and out. Thats the battery eliminator shutting the controller down, when the voltage drops but restarting it when the voltage jumps back up. Then they ring us to complain that the motor is gutless etc fraud etc fair trading etc. We got a lot of those lol and sadly, people are still using fraud power supplies and not even relising it because it has JUST enough current to drive the motor unless it gets a really big load in which case it will shut down, but they've learned to live with it and know how much to feed it to stop it shutting down.
But its hard to blame the customer, they did the right thing, they bought the right power supply, they just got done over by con-men. They keep the account for a few months and then disssapear. By the time you wouk out you've beed defrauded, their accounts are gone.

The controllers, we've never had a problem with them and we use them on motors that are MUCH bigger than the one that comes with the kit. So the problem wasn't the controller and I don't know if Ryan knew about this

As for the service, that was my fault... I got really sick and I was the one that designed the controller. I was in hospital for 4 years (the last year was in and out constantly because of infections), so its only been Ryan running the place by himself. So yeah, ovbiously the service is going to drop when you're swamped with people that need help, and advice when you're just trying to keep up with everything yourself. Its overwhelming, but we don't mke enough to employ another person.
So try and keep an open mind. You may have issues, but take other people into consideration before you abuse them. Without me there to answer the tech questions, things just mounted up.

Had you had the same issues and I was available, it would have taken seconds to get you controller up and running.

Most of the problems go back to the power supply. Honestly, for the guy that couldn't get his controller working, THE ONLY THING YOU NEEDED TO DO was to turn the voltage output on the switchmode controller UP to about 12.4-13V to the controller and turn the low voltage cutout to 0!
Thats it. That one simple thing would have brought your controller to life.

Most 12v switchmode power supplies are set at EXACTLY at 12v, but remember, the controller has a low voltage cutout, as it was made with batteries in mind.

So If you're only putting 12v into it, then the controller knows there will be sag dropping it to under 12v the moment you load it up, then the voltage WILL drop below what a charged 12v battery should be putting out, so the eliminator cuts in to save the battery. It doesn't know you're using a power supply. So all you had to do, was turn up the voltage output on the power supply. I know you didn't do this from the readings you took. But this one thing would have brought the controller to life. I knew the problem the moment you said you had a light, but no control. So i knew the controller was working but the cutout was on.

So you got more and more frustrated trying everything but the one thing that would have fixed the controller. So you must have been playing with the pots but not actually reading the controller instructions because it mentions just this, in case it happens because I use to get calls with people that had the same issue and couldnt get the controller working and just assumed it was a bad controller. Wrong.

However, I'm sorry you had to go through the frustrations and I'm sorry i wasn't there to help. My pancreas picked a bad time to digest itself and leave me in hospital for 4 years and they gave me a gift called MRSA which stopped the healing and caused my hospital stay to go from a month to 4 years.

Cheers guys!
I appreciate you all more than you could ever know.

 

[motiondynamics]

Keg king motor and gearbox arrived on Friday, comprehensive kit of parts, including 10 and 12 mm spider connectors and key for gearbox. All parts were wired up except for a power lead, quick trip to Mitre 10 had that sorted.

I spent yesterday mounting it all to the mill, biggest hassle was getting the height of the shafts to match, the mill was 4 mm lower than the gearbox which I fixed with some shims made from 3 mm thick perspex and 1 mm steel.

I wired the panic button up to the mains lead, plugged in switched on and the rollers went round, just need to test on grain, next weekend probably.

View attachment 118049

We sell the newer model of this. This is the old design that a lot of Chinese copied. But they aren't suitable for mills because they can't produce more than 19.6nm of torque at the peak of their output, but theres a catch, lol. Thats with a 5GU gearbox and the biggest motor you can get for them is only 120W, so our motor blows this away in Power, torque and speed.

Thats why we didn't use this as the base for our design from the motor side of things. It simply doesn't have the power or torque. To get the torque, you have to slow the motor right down from 1600 to like 5 rpm, and the higher the gearing the less speed you have, but you're torque locked at 19.6Nm and getting that torque comes at a cost of the motor speed.
Our motor can drive up to 25nM at 140rpm, the perfect speed. This one can't get the speed or the torque together. You can basically have one or the other (speed or torque) or go in the middle for the gearbox, but you'll still be too slow and underpowered. Our motor can overdrive to around 600W and stay stable working in a 24/7 environment. You can ask all the places that mill for others about how reliable these systems are.

Trust me when I say... our system blows this away. Absolutely blows it away. No question at all. I'm an Industrial automation design engineer, and there was good reason I didn't use this motor even though we carry it. Or at least the newer model of this, which is better than the old, but still not good enough for this task.
https://www.motiondynamics.com.au/g.p.g-90mm-120w-ac-speed-control-motor.html

Scroll down till you get to the speed and torque table. Take a look for yourself. This is the same motor and gearbox. To get the 120rpm, you would have to use the 10:1 gearbox which gets you the speed through the mechanical losses, but then you only have 5.9nM of torque. See why I didn't use it and instead opted to have a custom unit built for us?

I'd rather have 130(ish)RPM and 20-30nM of torque, you can increase the voltage too, to increase the speed with no penalty.

 

[motiondynamics]

New Grain mill setup. Finally got it how I want it. 3 Roller Mill from Keg King. Motor and PCB controller from Motor Dynamics. Project box from Jaycar and Power Pak from Ebay. Crush is .085 (2.15mm) . Its portable so I can hang it on the wall and put on the round white tubs also Hopefully another brew next week coming up.View attachment 118227View attachment 118228View attachment 118229

Nice setup man. I've seen good ones and I've seen some of the dodgiest crap too lol.
Some of you are talented in different ways, and it shows.
Actually, some of you should be building and selling these, because your designs are so damn good. I've seen some really impressive builds.

 

[motiondynamics]

I ran a jumper lead into that first terminal block & a green light activates so there's power but still no bloody speed control.

Sorry I wasn't there to help crusty, all you needed to do was turn down the Low voltage trimpot (p3) and then turn UP the output on your PSU and you would have been in business. It was the low voltage cutout that caused your issues, it had nothing to do with the controller being faulty.

Should have kept the controller though. It's FAR superior to the one you bought.

 

[motiondynamics]

I’m finding this interesting as I have a motor that looks very similar
I tried running it in a 12v power supply via a switch and variable speed but it didn’t have the torque to crush (I’ve got a mash master mill master mill)
I put it onto a 24V power supply which ran the motor but burnt out the variable speed unit so I hooked the motor directly to the power supply. It barely turned the motor
Because I was about to mill grain I then wired up a couple of 12v batteries to make 24v and the motor really worked well (crushed 5kg in less than 5 min)
I’ve since tried to use the 24v power supply but only got it to turn the motor properly once. For some reason it seems to reduce power when I wire the motor to the power supply, however when I put the motor onto a 12v supply it spins beautifully
Next is to try to do a crush on the 12v power supply
Otherwise I’m thinking the 24v power supply is too small or stuffed
24v 250w 10a
The draw from the motor is 68 w when running with no load
Got me stuffed

hahaha yeah, thats because we use custom stuff when we can't find exactly what we want. Sometimes we have to have custom motors made, which is what we had to do with these to get the torque and speed. Its way more powerful than the standard unit.

 

[motiondynamics]

I had a similar problem with mine. I stalled it starting with a full hopper of wheat and too small a gap.
This let the smoke out of the board and the speed control no longer worked. Still milled at single speed.

They got me to send the board back and they repaired for free. Took a while and a couple of calls to get it returned as I think it was miss placed

Yup, thats because the motor can draw a LOT more power than 25A if you overdrive it, and if its sustained it just gets too hot for the mosfet to handle.

 

[motiondynamics]

Under normal circumstances, It wouldn't of been a problem, I just got a dodgy board & my mistake toasted my 12V power supply.
The new gear I ordered from ebay is perfect. I just need to get it installed into a box & get the mill on a stand & I'm ready to go.

It also sounds like you may have bought a fake PSU too. The PSU should have cut out when the board pulled too much current. The fakes, don't have this safety protection because they're trying to put out as much current as they can when the safety isn't there. So ultimately, they fry.
It's by far been the biggest problem we've seen and its RAMPANT...

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

We sell the newer model of this. This is the old design that a lot of Chinese copied. But they aren't suitable for mills because they can't produce more than 19.6nm of torque at the peak of their output, but theres a catch, lol. Thats with a 5GU gearbox and the biggest motor you can get for them is only 120W, so our motor blows this away in Power, torque and speed.

Thats why we didn't use this as the base for our design from the motor side of things. It simply doesn't have the power or torque. To get the torque, you have to slow the motor right down from 1600 to like 5 rpm, and the higher the gearing the less speed you have, but you're torque locked at 19.6Nm and getting that torque comes at a cost of the motor speed.
Our motor can drive up to 25nM at 140rpm, the perfect speed. This one can't get the speed or the torque together. You can basically have one or the other (speed or torque) or go in the middle for the gearbox, but you'll still be too slow and underpowered. Our motor can overdrive to around 600W and stay stable working in a 24/7 environment. You can ask all the places that mill for others about how reliable these systems are.

Trust me when I say... our system blows this away. Absolutely blows it away. No question at all. I'm an Industrial automation design engineer, and there was good reason I didn't use this motor even though we carry it. Or at least the newer model of this, which is better than the old, but still not good enough for this task.
https://www.motiondynamics.com.au/g.p.g-90mm-120w-ac-speed-control-motor.html

Scroll down till you get to the speed and torque table. Take a look for yourself. This is the same motor and gearbox. To get the 120rpm, you would have to use the 10:1 gearbox which gets you the speed through the mechanical losses, but then you only have 5.9nM of torque. See why I didn't use it and instead opted to have a custom unit built for us?

I'd rather have 130(ish)RPM and 20-30nM of torque, you can increase the voltage too, to increase the speed with no penalty.

I have had no problems with this motor driving my mill in nearly 4 years now, probably used every other week, it mills the grain perfectly in maybe 5 minutes.

I'm not sure what your comment is meant to say but there is nothing wrong with this motor at all, the assembly was dead easy everything was included, not like your motor and power supplies available at the time which only had half the bits, I think I even have an email from you saying you don't supply couplings, go and find one on ebay.

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

Just checked out the motion dynamics home brew milling motor, still looks like a half arsed job to me, no power supply, no coupling and no mount, I can't believe you have the front to bag the KK kit which only needs a power lead.

 

[Grok]

I can vouch for the KK kit, it does the job just fine, plenty of grunt, only thing I had to do was scratch up the surface of the shafts a bit with a file for the spider coupling clamps to grip better, been powering along for a few years with no problems, good value I reckon!

 

[motiondynamics]

I can vouch for the KK kit, it does the job just fine, plenty of grunt, only thing I had to do was scratch up the surface of the shafts a bit with a file for the spider coupling clamps to grip better, been powering along for a few years with no problems, good value I reckon!

Honestly, I have no doubt. I've not bagged the motor, I've just disagreed with Sidney. Now that I've actually looked at it, its just what I said it was, a 120w motor, connected to a 7.5:1 gearbox. It only needs a GN gearbox because the torque is so low. Its only putting about 5.7nM max at 180rpm, ours at similar speeds is up around the 20-25nM range depending on your power supplies ability to carry current and if you go into overdrive mode, it can go higher. Sid thinks Im bagging this unit, but I'm not. Its a great unit. Thats innovation. So I give them full credit for what they've built and how easy they've made it to hook up. And I happen to like the guys at KK. More power to them.

All I was saying is that Its NOT the specs the forum users gave me when I built our motor. They told me they needed 20-30nm of torque @ 180 RPM. Thats what I gave them.

I'm not saying its a bad product, it's actully a really clever product, we just didn't go that way, although it would be pretty easy for us to improve on this with the same design to give you more options and make ours cheaper, but why? why compete with our people that have helped us on our journey? We're not going to do that because we respect Australian companies, they are a small business just like us... We get some sales, they get some sales, easy and it helps both of us.

Its even a decent price for a induction motor of that size. Thats better than ours in in that its cheaper, and it can simply be plugged straight into the wall. Theres nothing wrong with that at all. Its a really nice design.

But like anythig in life, theres a reason we didn't go down this road, and its more than the capacity of the motor.

 

[motiondynamics]

I have had no problems with this motor driving my mill in nearly 4 years now, probably used every other week, it mills the grain perfectly in maybe 5 minutes.

I'm not sure what your comment is meant to say but there is nothing wrong with this motor at all, the assembly was dead easy everything was included, not like your motor and power supplies available at the time which only had half the bits, I think I even have an email from you saying you don't supply couplings, go and find one on ebay.

Just checked out the motion dynamics home brew milling motor, still looks like a half arsed job to me, no power supply, no coupling and no mount, I can't believe you have the front to bag the KK kit which only needs a power lead.

I never bagged the kk motors Sid. I just told you they aren't the same as ours. But since you seem to disagree, we can sort that out. See below.
Regarding the couplings, what did you expect us to say when we don't sell them? It's because we aren't familar with different sized shafts on ALL the mill's available and each one uses different sizes depending on how many rollers, diameter gearing etc etc etc. They change depending on how they are used including the width of the crush. But you are right, we should at least be selling them as an option. I'll fix that.

No mount?? oh Sid, didn't you know that the gearbox IS the mount? Yeah believe it or not ours isn't designed to sit horizontally to your mill, ours sidemounts, so it's inline with your mill..straight out from the side. The gearbox itself is the mount. If you look theres 4 mounting holes there where you can mount the gearbox and motor to the side of your mill. Its called a sidemount and its how worm drives connect.

Sidney, your comment is funny man. But you just had to go ahead and make it personal.
And since you're so keen to talk garbage about our "half arsed" gear, You'll obviously have no problems putting YOUR money where your mouth is right?, right Sid? Seems the easiest way to settle your rubbish. Im confident that he's absolutely sure of himself and he could possibly win! I like that attitude! Bring it on Sid!
So, bring your mill over and lets settle this. We get someone impartial who knows what they are doing, then do a side by side test making sure I show your comments while we see your talk vs reality as we livestream in REAL time. Sound fair? You can choose whatever speed controller you like from us that is suitable for the motor, whatever gearbox you like and whatever motor you like. We don't want you thinking we've rigged something especially for this. Thats not what we do. We've got a lab supply OR a brand name Switchmode PSU 90A, so we got the current baby, we can use whichever one you want. Our product vs yours, on YOUR mill. mano el mano. We can measure the milling, the time, the torque, the speed, everything. You'll see theres no cheating with an impartial witness and experienced miller (whom I will give a free setup to if Siddy actually turns up, again, we both choose someone impartial. No brand names, private livestream. We don't want to hurt our friends at KK, their product IS great.

I'm also betting it will be unlikely that you will show up, because unlike you, I'm secure in what I build. And I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is.. I'm keen Sid. So, let's see if you are.
You talk rubbish about our product, lets settle it. You win, I give you a free mill motor setup with a 90A Power supply. With all the best options available for it including a $260 controller, emergency stop, motor and gearbox, the full package from power point to motor.. You lose, you give me your motor. Done deal? Siddy ? Or you feeling a bit insecure?

But regardless of Sid, some of the things he said were right, apart from the comeents that really weren't nessasary and cheesed me right off. But we'll sort those out on a livestream. I'll make some changes on our end to make it easier AND better to use. I'll change the controller to a better one, maybe something with a display or someting so you can see the exact speeds you're setting and rather than supplying a unidirectional, I'll change it to a bi-directional. I'll add options for other stuff you may need etc. It wont have many (if any) options, but you don't need them You'll be able to change from 0-100% speed in both directions. I'll include a full wiring diagram for the electrician you will be getting to connect everything (3 wires to 3 screw terminals). Shouldn't cost you more than $5-10 (mostly free in our experience from customers) that have walked in. I'm guessing a lot probably did it themselves too.

I'll look into the power supplies too, but theres so much crap out there thats really saturated and infected the market with knockoffs and custom copies that are made to be way cheaper in quality etc that allow overloads because they don't have the monitors in place to stop them as they were cut to shave costs and let people claim they can do higher currents so they can change the labels. But theres also the cost of the certification for them. Its NOT cheap when you have a full range, which is expensive to certify for the electrical standards in here in Australia.. We had to do the same with ALL of our own AC motors too and that wasn't cheap, its why you see the CE and the C-Tick with our registration number on our AC motors. We have to put them on by law. Its also the reason we didn't go with bigger AC motors here. We just didn't want to keep paying for the testing of each different motor because we already did that and it was expensive as hell. Don't fany doing it again, but if we have to, then we will.. It will save people trying to find the cheapest 30A power supply and getting a 10A or something like that.

 

[Feldon]

All I was saying is that Its NOT the specs the forum users gave me when I built our motor. They told me they needed 20-30nm of torque @ 180 RPM. Thats what I gave them.

I remember back in 2010 when you guys first came on this forum asking what we brewers wanted from a mill motor.

One of the issues people raised was the need to deal with the occasional small rock that had found its way into the malt. It could jam the rollers in the mill. That was one of the considerations in your selection of the motor and gear box.

For newbies, here's the original thread. It's a text book read on the hard yards a supplier has to tread to break through the doubters. Well done MD on staying the distance.

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/mill-motors.44766/

 

[motiondynamics]

I remember back in 2010 when you guys first came on this forum asking what we brewers wanted from a mill motor.

One of the issues people raised was the need to deal with the occasional small rock that had found its way into the malt. It could jam the rollers in the mill. That was one of the considerations in your selection of the motor and gear box.

For newbies, here's the original thread. It's a text book read on the hard yards a supplier has to tread to break through the doubters. Well done MD on staying the distance.

https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/mill-motors.44766/

Yup, I think that was John and me back then. Actually, you're right Feldon, I think it was you that gave me the idea... Thats also why I chose the 12mm shaft when the inner diameter was 12.3mm. The split pin would tear away from the shaft and wrap around the inner part of the shaft. Where you could easily pull it out with needle nose plyers. We asked what roller sizes people wanted but nobody could give us a definitive list, which is why we didn't chase them up. But now that I'm back, that will change. I'll get a really good quality coupling set for you all to have the option of adding to the kit.

Thats why we recommended the use of a split pin for the connection. If you got a rock in your mill, we found that 100% of the time, the split pin fails. The connecting split pin will tear out, even the larger ones. Its why we recommend users not to use nails or bolts of any kind because the motor wont be able to break those, and will likely stall depending on the mill gap and current available. But split pins just tear out if theres a rock. We already got to test that multiple times. So we're confident in them, they haven't failed us once lol. Its also much cheaper than a clutch.

We did try and put together a decent kit, but we can always improve it. And apart from being cheesed at Sid, he's kind of right but mostly wrong.
It is what it is, thank you for your kind words. I'll improve the brewer till I get it right!

 

[Sidney Harbour-Bridge]

I never bagged the kk motors Sid. I just told you they aren't the same as ours. But since you seem to disagree, we can sort that out. See below.
Regarding the couplings, what did you expect us to say when we don't sell them? It's because we aren't familar with different sized shafts on ALL the mill's available and each one uses different sizes depending on how many rollers, diameter gearing etc etc etc. They change depending on how they are used including the width of the crush. But you are right, we should at least be selling them as an option. I'll fix that.

No mount?? oh Sid, didn't you know that the gearbox IS the mount? Yeah believe it or not ours isn't designed to sit horizontally to your mill, ours sidemounts, so it's inline with your mill..straight out from the side. The gearbox itself is the mount. If you look theres 4 mounting holes there where you can mount the gearbox and motor to the side of your mill. Its called a sidemount and its how worm drives connect.

Sidney, your comment is funny man. But you just had to go ahead and make it personal.
And since you're so keen to talk garbage about our "half arsed" gear, You'll obviously have no problems putting YOUR money where your mouth is right?, right Sid? Seems the easiest way to settle your rubbish. Im confident that he's absolutely sure of himself and he could possibly win! I like that attitude! Bring it on Sid!
So, bring your mill over and lets settle this. We get someone impartial who knows what they are doing, then do a side by side test making sure I show your comments while we see your talk vs reality as we livestream in REAL time. Sound fair? You can choose whatever speed controller you like from us that is suitable for the motor, whatever gearbox you like and whatever motor you like. We don't want you thinking we've rigged something especially for this. Thats not what we do. We've got a lab supply OR a brand name Switchmode PSU 90A, so we got the current baby, we can use whichever one you want. Our product vs yours, on YOUR mill. mano el mano. We can measure the milling, the time, the torque, the speed, everything. You'll see theres no cheating with an impartial witness and experienced miller (whom I will give a free setup to if Siddy actually turns up, again, we both choose someone impartial. No brand names, private livestream. We don't want to hurt our friends at KK, their product IS great.

I'm also betting it will be unlikely that you will show up, because unlike you, I'm secure in what I build. And I'm prepared to put my money where my mouth is.. I'm keen Sid. So, let's see if you are.
You talk rubbish about our product, lets settle it. You win, I give you a free mill motor setup with a 90A Power supply. With all the best options available for it including a $260 controller, emergency stop, motor and gearbox, the full package from power point to motor.. You lose, you give me your motor. Done deal? Siddy ? Or you feeling a bit insecure?

But regardless of Sid, some of the things he said were right, apart from the comeents that really weren't nessasary and cheesed me right off. But we'll sort those out on a livestream. I'll make some changes on our end to make it easier AND better to use. I'll change the controller to a better one, maybe something with a display or someting so you can see the exact speeds you're setting and rather than supplying a unidirectional, I'll change it to a bi-directional. I'll add options for other stuff you may need etc. It wont have many (if any) options, but you don't need them You'll be able to change from 0-100% speed in both directions. I'll include a full wiring diagram for the electrician you will be getting to connect everything (3 wires to 3 screw terminals). Shouldn't cost you more than $5-10 (mostly free in our experience from customers) that have walked in. I'm guessing a lot probably did it themselves too.

I'll look into the power supplies too, but theres so much crap out there thats really saturated and infected the market with knockoffs and custom copies that are made to be way cheaper in quality etc that allow overloads because they don't have the monitors in place to stop them as they were cut to shave costs and let people claim they can do higher currents so they can change the labels. But theres also the cost of the certification for them. Its NOT cheap when you have a full range, which is expensive to certify for the electrical standards in here in Australia.. We had to do the same with ALL of our own AC motors too and that wasn't cheap, its why you see the CE and the C-Tick with our registration number on our AC motors. We have to put them on by law. Its also the reason we didn't go with bigger AC motors here. We just didn't want to keep paying for the testing of each different motor because we already did that and it was expensive as hell. Don't fany doing it again, but if we have to, then we will.. It will save people trying to find the cheapest 30A power supply and getting a 10A or something like that.

Past caring, I have a motor driving my mill to my satisfaction

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

Yup, I think that was John and me back then. Actually, you're right Feldon, I think it was you that gave me the idea... Thats also why I chose the 12mm shaft when the inner diameter was 12.3mm. The split pin would tear away from the shaft and wrap around the inner part of the shaft. Where you could easily pull it out with needle nose plyers. We asked what roller sizes people wanted but nobody could give us a definitive list, which is why we didn't chase them up. But now that I'm back, that will change. I'll get a really good quality coupling set for you all to have the option of adding to the kit.

Thats why we recommended the use of a split pin for the connection. If you got a rock in your mill, we found that 100% of the time, the split pin fails. The connecting split pin will tear out, even the larger ones. Its why we recommend users not to use nails or bolts of any kind because the motor wont be able to break those, and will likely stall depending on the mill gap and current available. But split pins just tear out if theres a rock. We already got to test that multiple times. So we're confident in them, they haven't failed us once lol. Its also much cheaper than a clutch.

We did try and put together a decent kit, but we can always improve it. And apart from being cheesed at Sid, he's kind of right but mostly wrong.
It is what it is, thank you for your kind words. I'll improve the brewer till I get it right!

Was from "another craft brewing forum" where someone suggested a thin walled alumnium rod from the big green shed as the shaft, secured with whatever. Idea is that the aluminium shaft itself was that soft that it would collapse/break in that event, rather than sizing a split pin.... I've employed this on mine but also added a thermal circuit breaker than shuts on electrical overload well before the peak current of my motor (I have your 200W motor and a 40A power supply)... CB is set to 10A. I have had it trip before when I forgot to swap buckets and overfilled from underneath.

 

[motiondynamics]

DJ, thats not a bad idea... I'll look into that, a breakable piece. We used the split pins beecause of the fact they will reliably collapse the moment the motor jams, and using a slightly smaller shaft meant the pin would wrap around the inner shaft and then free turn. Thats why the shaft is 12mm and the opening is 12.3mm its been bulletproof so far, but a thermal load, now thats a good idea. I can shut the controller off when the motor reaches a certain temp. Though I'd have to build that. though it wouldn't be too difficult to make an addon board. I'll think on this.

Just looking into couplings now as well as power supplies. Couplings wont be so hard. Power supplies will be, and we may have to source our own. Mainly because the wholesale prices of low volume from companies here, that have compliance are 4-6 times ebay prices for the same stuff. We can't buy them from eBay or Amazon because none of those have any compliance. It would be illegal for us to sell them, but its not illegal for you to buy them.

Thats why we can't offer them as part of our kit.

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

DJ, thats not a bad idea... I'll look into that, a breakable piece. We used the split pins beecause of the fact they will reliably collapse the moment the motor jams, and using a slightly smaller shaft meant the pin would wrap around the inner shaft and then free turn. Thats why the shaft is 12mm and the opening is 12.3mm its been bulletproof so far, but a thermal load, now thats a good idea. I can shut the controller off when the motor reaches a certain temp. Though I'd have to build that. though it wouldn't be too difficult to make an addon board. I'll think on this.

Just looking into couplings now as well as power supplies. Couplings wont be so hard. Power supplies will be, and we may have to source our own. Mainly because the wholesale prices of low volume from companies here, that have compliance are 4-6 times ebay prices for the same stuff. We can't buy them from eBay or Amazon because none of those have any compliance. It would be illegal for us to sell them, but its not illegal for you to buy them.

Thats why we can't offer them as part of our kit.

I used this:

https://www.jaycar.com.au/10a-circuit-breaker/p/SF2258

For the sacrificial shaft I used this:

https://www.bunnings.com.au/metal-mate-12-x-1mm-3m-aluminium-round-tube_p1079420

Also here's my grain mill setup for dust control, works a treat but my dog hates me since I stopped making a mess on the floor everytime I milled...

 

[razz]

The original MillMaster, I love mine. They don’t make them like that anymore!

 

[DJ_L3ThAL]

The original MillMaster, I love mine. They don’t make them like that anymore!

Is that what it is???? I’ve been wondering as I got it 2nd hand. I thought it was a monster mill 3….